It’s ICAC that’s the Rum Corps: witness

He is best mates with wealthy businessman
John Kinghorn
and a friend of disgraced Labor mining minister
Ian Macdonald
, and just for the record Greg Jones wants you to know he’s not a bad person.

Mr Jones, who worked for the NSW government and is now a wealthy businessman living in Hong Kong, has been summonsed to appear before the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption.

The inquiry is investigating corruption around the granting of a coal exploration licence to Cascade Coal, a company in which Mr Jones has a shareholding.

Prior to the ICAC hearing on Friday, Mr Jones told the Weekend Financial Review the reputational damage of being associated with the inquiry is “shocking".

“None of us are bad people. The way it gets written up and the way you get treated, it’s not right really. There’s nothing you can do about it. When you refer to it as the Rum Corps the justice level is about the same," he said.

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On the opening day of the inquiry Geoffrey Watson, SC, counsel assisting the commission, said it was “the most important investigation ever undertaken" by the ICAC and it would show “corruption on a scale probably unexceeded since the days of the Rum Corps".

The corruption watchdog is delving into whether Cascade acquired inside information that it would win a coal exploration licence in 2009 with the involvement of the family of former Labor MP
Eddie Obeid
.

The licence covered land known as Mount Penny in central NSW owned by the Obeids and their associates.

The inquiry is also investigating the Obeids’ involvement in two of the successful tenderers for coal licences, including Cascade.

Mr Jones, 59, will appear at the inquiry when it resumes sitting on January 21. He said at that time “the truth will come out".

“When the truth and facts are all on the table everything will be fully understood. At the moment there hasn’t been any of that but that will eventually happen."

Mr Jones declined to elaborate on any inaccuracies involved in the case, saying he’s not allowed to talk about it until he appears next month.

Mr Jones, who has been living in Hong Kong with his family for 2½ years, is operating a wine business and developing an educational services firm there.

He said the firm, which for the past year has been getting approvals from the Hong Kong government, will be working with Macleay College to deliver courses to students in Hong Kong and mainland China ranging from journalism to accounting.

Mr Jones is better known for being a co-founder of RAMS Home Loans with Mr Kinghorn, where he collected tens of millions of dollars after the company was floated in 2007. At the ICAC on Wednesday Mr Kinghorn, 71, told the inquiry that Mr Jones had been his business partner for 20 years.

“I know him as well as I know my wife," he said.

The two have invested together in companies such as Elect, Health Services Direct, Krispy Kreme, Tryden Investments, Allco Finance and Cascade Coal. Mr Kinghorn was an investor and a Cascade director.

The inquiry heard Mr Kinghorn at one point held Cascade shares in trust for Mr Jones because Mr Jones believed it would be better if his name did not appear as a shareholder due to his relationship with Mr Macdonald.

This is what Mr Jones told the ICAC but it has been denied by Mr Kinghorn.

Mr Macdonald and Mr Jones became friends working in the office of former NSW attorney-general Frank Walker. Mr Jones also chaired the NSW Wine Industry Research and Development Advisory Council.